I Am
by misswhiteblack
Summary: When James needs to talk hang whatever I am doing at the time ...


There are many things that I am. I am a girl. I am seventeen. I am the oldest of seven children. I am a twin. I am 5ft 10 inches tall. I am smart. I am a witch. I am a Hogwarts student. I am a Ravenclaw. I am excellent at Defence against the Dark Arts and Potions. I am going to pass my N.E. with flying colours. I am an orphan. I am a brunette. I am so very like my father. I am a worrier. I am a chaser. There are so many thing that I am, so many things that I am good at. I am a good listener. I am a good friend. I know this because of the times I have been told it. I don't believe in false modesty. I know who I am. I am Serena Rosa White. I am very loyal. I am James Potter's best friend. I am here when he needs me.

It wasn't often that James decided that he needed to talk. Not that we never talked. We talked all the time but never did he come up to me and say "we need to talk". It confused me no end. I spent the rest of the day distracted by it. Professor Slughorn shouted at me twice during Potions which, needless to say, had never happened before. Even my team members notice something was up. To quote Cleaver, I apparently "never give it to them this easy". Well, it's not my fault that I am distracted. Technically, it was James' fault for saying "we need to talk" because it made me worry. What did we need to talk about? What in the name of Merlin's sagging butt cheeks was wrong? You can see my confusion. James and I often talked but he never announced his intention at the beginning of the day and would then leave me to ponder about it all day. No, when James needed to talk hang whatever I might have been doing at the time. Not that I am particularly bothered by that. I am James Potter's best friend and if he needs to talk then all he has to do is come and find me. Not that I am that hard to find because I'm either with him, with my twin brother, Johnathon or with Lily, Emmeline and Hesita. Mostly I am with James though. It is often suggested around this school that we are in love with each other, something that I find both amusing and annoying depending on which mood I am in or sometimes even what day it is. It is rather obvious that James and I are not in love with each other. Why is this? This is because it is rather obvious to anyone who cares to observe that James is in love with my other best friend, Lily Evans. Now I love James and I love Lily but sometimes I hate them both. If I could be any more in the middle I'd have to be a lot thinner. I have known James since we were two and have loved him for his quirky personality and complete obsession with Quidditch and causing trouble since then. I have known Lily since I was eleven and love her for her good nature, her bookishness and her generally kindness. That is because Lily is kind to everyone except James and sometimes it makes me want to slap her. I mean can't she see that behind all the jokes and occasionally egotistical moment that James is really just your average boy who really loves her. On the other hand sometimes I really want to punch James. After all it is slightly his own fault for upsetting Lily in the first place and sometimes he just continues to dig himself a hole. Now I have spent many a day with Hesita and Emmeline trying to convince Lily to give James a shot. I have often tried to point out James' good points to which Lily always replies with "You would say that Serena. He is your best friend." So I have had no luck there. I have also spent several hours of my life with Sirius, Peter and Remus trying to work out how to get James to stop hexing Snape. Not that Sirius helps much since he is always adding comments like "but come on its Snivellus. If we don't get him, he'll get us." I have also wasted several more Hogsmeade weekends with Hesita, Emmeline, Peter, Remus and Sirius trying to get Lily and James together without either of them knowing it.

Being a best friend is an exhausting job. Trust me, when I say it couldn't be much worse for me. Sixth year was the worst. Now I love my friends. I love James' friends who are also my friends. So when I learned from Remus that Sirius and Lily were a couple I thought someone had slipped me a Cauchemar Draught which basically slips the drinker into their worst nightmare. Even when all that was happening James never said "we need to talk". So you can see why I am worried. I wonder whether he found out that it was actually me and Remus that flavoured his pumpkin juice to taste like Cockroach Clusters. It was terribly funny at the time. Maybe he knows that I am on speaking terms with Sirius' little brother Regulus although how he could have found that out I have little to no idea. I am pretty good at any kind of defensive spell including disillusionment spells. James and his invisibility cloak have nothing on me and a disillusionment charm. I suppose I would just have to wait and see. I wondered if I was the only one he wanted to talk to. Maybe he wanted to play a prank on the other marauders. They'd never done that before but, hey, who is to say what James will do next. Especially since he thinks it was Sirius and Peter who made his pumpkin juice taste like Cockroach Clusters.

So at precisely five to six, when everyone is heading to the Great Hall, I climb the stairs to the Astronomy tower at the request of my best friend hoping that he has remembered that I get grumpy when I miss my dinner. I arrive at the top to see James sitting on the ground by the battlement wall, his knees hunched up and clutching a couple of pumpkin pasties. He looks desolate as I walk over and slid down the wall to sit beside him. He doesn't look up which is unusual. James, having a flare for the dramatic, normally likes to pick me up in a bear hug and twirl me round. He has been doing it since we were little. We sit there together for a few minutes without speaking. It makes me worry more. After all this isn't James.

'James,' I begin tentatively, 'what's wrong?'

He doesn't answer me for a while but instead continues to stare down at the pumpkin pasties as though they are about to disappear. I flip my caramel curls over my shoulder and intensify my look at him. He should know by now that I am a worrier and that no doubt right now I am worrying about him. I don't like worrying about James. I've never liked worrying about him and most of the time I don't have to. I have enough siblings to worry about.

'I've tried 'Rena,' he says suddenly his tone despairing. 'Merlin knows I have tried but none of it is ever good enough. Why isn't it?'

He looks up at me then and I can see his eyes are blazing in anger. Not just anger though. I can see the upset and the passion and the longing behind them. I know how he is feeling. I know because he has been feeling it for years now. I know because I am his best friend and he doesn't need to speak to tell me what is wrong.

'I have tried to change,' he continues. 'I have tried to be what she wants me to be. I have tried to be nice. I have tried to be sweet. I have tried to stop messing up my hair when she is around but it's not like I can help it. It's just a natural reaction. I thought she might like me better when I became Head Boy, when I could convince her that there is more to me than meets the eye. She won't let me though. There is nothing I can do or say that convinces her to let me in, to open up to me, to give me just one shot. I have tried not to be in love with her.'

I bite my lip. I have always found it difficult being in the middle of the two of them but never more so than at this moment. I have had conversations with both of them so often, James telling me how perfect he and Lily would be, Lily telling me how perfect it would be if James would just disappear. I am not sure what I am supposed to say. I know what it is like trying to not love someone because you know that they don't love you back. I know how hard it is. If I am honest with myself it is impossible but I don't like to be honest where I am concerned. It doesn't hurt as much if I lie to myself.

'Oh Jamie,' I say eventually pushing my small hand round his arm until we are linking arms, 'I don't know how I can make it better. I know how hard you have tried and, trust me, I know how much it hurts knowing that you just can't have her, knowing that she is right there in front of you but just so out of your reach.'

James sighs.

'Of course you understand,' he replies. 'You always understand me even when I'm not sure what I'm going on about. I just don't understand what I have to do to convince her. It's not like I can just change my entire personality and even if I could I don't think it would help. She still looks at me with the same old prejudices. She doesn't see anything beneath my face. If I could just have five minutes just to talk to her. She'll talk with everyone apart from me. After all, she dated Sirius last year and he has a bigger ego than me.'

I took a deep breath. There are things that I am sworn to secrecy about. Things that Lily makes me promise never to tell James and because I am a good friend I don't. Of course it doesn't mean that I don't act on them. I have never told James one of Lily's secrets before and James has never pressured me into telling him. He knows me too well for that. Still, now feels like an emergency.

'She doesn't hate you so much anymore,' I tell him in a whisper which startles him. 'I asked her you see. I knew that you two weren't getting on as well as you might as Head Boy and Girl. So I asked her if she hated you. She shrugged and then said that she didn't hate you.'

'Thanks for telling me 'Rena,' he says, 'but that doesn't really help me much. She might not hate me anymore but that doesn't mean she even likes me a little. She could still extremely dislike me. Why does this hurt so much?'

His shoulders sag and I slip my arm out from his before wrapping it round his shoulders.

'It hurts because you love her and would give anything to show her just how much.'

'I do love her. I would do anything for her. I have tried to stop loving her for her. She lets all these other guys who are completely unworthy of her get close to her but never me, never the one who loves her the most. Nobody will ever love her like I do. I would give her everything, even my life, for her.'

I squeeze his shoulders knowing that what he says is true. I have known for a long time just how passionate James gets and just how loyal he is. Lily could not do better than him. There would be nothing that she would want for with James. He would never hurt her purposely, never cheat on her and he would never be cruel to her. He would love her forever and I knew that.

'I wish I could stop loving her,' he goes on. 'I wish I could fall in love with someone else. I have tried you know. I tried with Christiana. I tried so hard to love her but I knew that I couldn't fall out of love with Lily and Christie deserved so much more than I always able to give her. I tried even after that. Since I split up with Christie,' he looks down at this point and swallows nervously, 'I have been trying to fall in love with someone else, someone I know that I love.'

He looks back up and I immediately understand what he is saying. I swallow suddenly nervous.

'James, I love you,' I tell him, 'and I know that you love me too but not the same way. You'll never be happy with me and I will never be happy with you. You know that you will always love Lily and I know that ... well, it'll never be the same with me. You are like my brother. You are my brother.'

James smiles at me weakly and I can see that he knew I would say those things.

'I know Serena. You are my sister. Lily is the love of my life. I just want her to know that. I just want to be able to sit down and tell her. If she would just listen to me for five minutes so I could tell her everything that is in my heart then she could make the right decision for her. I would respect that. I know that if she still rejected me it would hurt but I would have to live with that because I love her.'

I tilt my head to look at him. He is staring at the pasties again and I glance at them too my stomach rumbling slightly. James laughs when he hears it but does not make a comment. We both know that now is not the time to be making comments about "rumblies in my tumblies".

'Go and tell her,' I tell him suddenly knowing that Lily is not currently at the Great Hall but is in fact in the library. She said that she wanted some quiet time to study her Arithmancy book. 'She's alone in the library. Just go on up and speak to her. Make her listen to you. Why don't you give her your Agrippa Chocolate Frog card? She's been dying to get her hands on it.'

James stares at me for a moment before he gets to his feet determination in his eyes. I smile up at him.

'I'll go and try,' he says looking down at me. 'Merlin knows I've tried everything else.'

He turns to walk away and I clear my throat to draw his attention back at me. He turns round puzzled and I indicate the pumpkin pasties still clutched in his hands.

'Oh,' he say with a smile, 'sorry 'Rena.'

He chucks me a pumpkin pastie which I catch deftly in my right hands. After all I am a chaser and I am very good at catching things especially if it involves food. I tear open the packet as James hurries to the stairs.

'Oh and 'Rena,' he says stopping for a moment as I take a bite out of the pastie, 'thanks. To repay the favour I'll have a word with him for you.'

He disappears down the stairs leaving me sitting staring after him. I am confused.


End file.
